


History Repeats Itself

by TheLittlestBoho



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-21
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 04:11:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLittlestBoho/pseuds/TheLittlestBoho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes one life just isn't enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Repeats Itself

Sometimes Stiles nearly calls Derek by the wrong name. He usually doesn’t think much of it because his life has been kind of stressful lately, okay? And so a little bit of mental flubbing is totally acceptable when you’re someone with ADHD who is constantly trying to not be killed by supernatural creatures. It’s no big deal, and he always catches himself in time anyways. So whatever.

At least, he doesn’t think anything of it until he’s in his second year of college and doing a genealogy assignment for one of his courses. It wasn’t supposed to be a big thing, just a few generations back. But Stiles has never done half-assed research, and he kind of hyper focused on the thing.

Cyrek Stilinski was his great-great-great however many times back grandfather. And he was badass. Dude made all sorts of discoveries and scientific breakthroughs, and Stiles was pretty sure they would’ve totally gotten along together.

Cyrek was also rumoured to be less-than-totally-heterosexual. And to have had a lover named Pawel.

He had nearly called Derek that once or twice, and after finding the history he found himself dreaming about Cyrek and Pawel. Some of the dreams were ridiculous, the kind of thing your subconscious came up with after coffee late at night and nachos right before bed. Others though…others were painfully realistic, the sort of dream where you woke up with phantom aches.

Three weeks after finding the names he slipped up and called Derek ‘Pawel’ when they were waiting for the rest of the pack to get to the Hale house. The alpha paused, blinking slightly, before grumbling at Stiles.

He kept looking at him oddly all meeting though, so Stiles started to investigate.

***

Cyrek smiled, ignoring Pawel’s frown in favor of kissing him. “It will work, I promise you.”

“You’re a fool, Cyrek,” the younger man groused, continuing to frown despite his lover’s beaming grin. “I don’t see how this could possibly work.”

It just earned him another kiss and a playful tug on his brown curls before Cyrek was bounding across the room, intent on his experiment. Pawel just sighed, watching the older man work in the chaotic method he always seemed prone towards. His blonde hair was everywhere, tugged up from fingers continually run through it, and his eyes were vibrant from a mix of excitement and miod pitny.

He was entrancing.

Until he attached one thing to another, poured two other things into one another and caused a small explosion. Pawel was out of his seat in an instant, rushing across the room. “Cyrek! What happened? Are you alright?”

His panic eased at the sound of his partner’s laugh, face covered in soot as he spun to look at Pawel. “Maybe it still needs some work,” Cyrek admitted, grinning at him.

“One of these days you are going to gravely injure yourself, and then what will I do,” he said, attempting to hide his very real concern under a layer of equally real frustration. It was clear he didn’t succeed when Cyrek’s features softened, his hands coming to rest on Pawel’s neck.

“Then, kochanie,” Cyrek said, pausing to kiss him tenderly, lips soft and sweet against his own, “you will nurse me back to health.”

And there was no point in trying to argue because Pawel would always take care of his lover. Always.

***

It was two months before Stiles had the odd urge to call Derek by a name other than his own. He hesitated, only a second, before letting it drop off his tongue. “So, Giotto, what’s the plan? ‘Cause if I have to listen to Jackson bitch anymore, I’m probably going to kill him.”

There it was again, that slightly confused look followed immediately by a frown. “Giotto?”

Stiles shrugged, fidgeting with the book on his lap. “Just testing out a new nickname. Sour wolf is getting a bit old, don’t you think?,” he said, and it was close enough to the truth that he was sure his pulse didn’t give him away.

“It was always old. And I’ll deal with Jackson,” Derek said, grumbling about pack dynamics and how you’d think, after nearly four years, his pack would have its shit together. Stiles just laughed and teased and tried not to think about how warm it made him feel to know Derek came to him with this stuff.

***

“Giotto,” he breathed, back arching slightly. “Giotto, please.”

The dark haired man smiled, nose pressing against his younger lover’s hip. “Shhhh, Tomas. Lorenzo is sleeping in the next room. He will not be happy if we wake him.”

Tomas bit his lip, moaning when Giotto kissed his way up his sides, fingers trailing over the younger man’s arms and legs. “You are going to be gone for months to work on the fresco for the chapel,” he said, running his fingers through Giotto’s hair. “Lorenzo will see you every day, he has no need to be unhappy. Not the way I do.”

He shifted, wrapping one leg around the back of Giotto’s thighs, pulling him closer. “I will miss you,” he said, leaning forward to kiss his lover, breathing against his mouth when they moved together. “I love you.”

Giotto sighed and wrapped his arms around Tomas, moving so that the younger man was laying on top of him. He traced his fingers over the soft lines that had started to form near Tomas’ eyes, the ones he had been watching come to life over the last two years. “I love you, as well, Tomas,” he said, one hand trailing down his lover’s back. “So beautiful.”

It earned him a smile, however sad it was. “The artist sees beauty everywhere,” he said, resting his head on Giotto’s chest. “I will still be here when you finish, if you will still want me.”

Giotto smiled, turning his head to kiss Tomas’ head. “Always.”

***

Stiles started researching. Because once was an incident, twice was a coincidence, and based on the number of times he’d nearly called Derek the wrong name in high school, this had officially become a pattern. So he researched, he pulled all-nighters reading up on subconscious cues and the secrets of the mind. Some of it was crap, but some of it seemed to go somewhere.

He started meditating, which was way harder than it sounded. Laying on his bed, in the dark, trying to focus on the idea of Derek usually lead to something totally the opposite of relaxed. Well. After a while it turned to relaxed, but Stiles was pretty sure it wasn’t quite the type of ‘relaxed’ the books had been aiming for. Otherwise a lot more people would be interested in ‘meditation’.

It took a few weeks but he eventually started to figure it out. He would focus on the way he felt when he mixed up Derek’s name, focus on the emotions that came with those names. Sometimes all it did was confuse him, because crushing on the alpha was definitely confusing.

Other times it helped him remember.

***

“Patrick!” she cried, relief on her face as she ran towards him. “You’re here.”

He smiled at the sight of her hoping down from her carriage. “Sarah,” he said, opening his arms to pull her into a tight hug, face pressed to her curls. “You’re alright.”

Nodding Sarah held tight to him, glad to be back with her husband. “Barely. Salem…it’s falling apart, Patrick. Joanna and Mary…they were both taken three days ago. We’re certain they were coming for me next.”

Patrick sighed, keeping an arm around the woman beside him as he led her inside the small cabin. “We’ll find a way to stop all of this, someone will step in and put an end to the hysteria.” He hoped it was true, otherwise people like Sarah were going to keep being hurt. There had never been a witch in the town, other creatures perhaps, but never witches.

“I hope so. If they find any people like me…” she stopped herself, shaking her head. “Wolves in prisons like that, it will only end in more bloodshed.”

“I know,” he said, cupping her cheek and kissing her gently. “We’ll get further away tomorrow, travel west.”

He didn’t let go of her until they were in the small bed that occupied one corner of the cabin, his arms immediately wrapping around her to rest on her slightly rounded stomach. “I won’t let anything happen to either of you,” he promised, smiling wanly at the idea of a human protecting a werewolf. But he would.

***

It was hot. It was always hot. The dirt burned at his feet, the air at his face. He couldn’t remember a time when it had been like this, not in this life or the one before it. Death was everywhere, and their people were dying.

His partner stood beside him, both of their backs straight as they watched the horizon. “Rain will come soon, we will survive.”

He nodded, closed his eyes against the grit that blew in the wind. “Did the shaman say something?”

A brief shake of the head that he heard in the jangle of the bones around his partner’s neck. “I can smell it.”

He nodded, pressed their hands together before letting out a breath. “Come, let’s see what we can find,” he said, leading the man beside him out across the dirt. If he said there would be rain, then there would be. They just had to hold on a bit longer.

***

The letter was a weight in her hands, heavier than all the propaganda the nation was throwing at them at every turn. Every day were more warnings about Nazi’s invading, about Hitler’s constant threat, and Rosie had never seen people this afraid.

It was hard to be afraid though, it was hard to feel anything with the cold medal in her hands.

Dennis was dead. Her Dennis, her lovely, perfect, grouchy Dennis was gone. It was unfathomable. He’d been coming home in a week. It wouldn’t have been a long stay, he would have been leaving back for the war within days, but he had been coming home. Rosie had a calendar on the wall of the flat she shared with two other girls. Each day was marked off in a piece of black pencil. But now Dennis wasn’t coming back.

She swallowed thickly, put the medal into the small box she kept beside her bed. She pinned her cap on, made sure her uniform was straight and tidy, checked her hair in the small mirror they shared. It didn’t take much effort at all to remember the way his kiss goodbye had felt, the rough feel of his stubble in the morning, the sound of his voice asking her to marry him when he got back from the war.

Locking the door behind her Rosie made her way down the stairs, twisting the small silver ring he’d given her around her finger. He had died saving people, with valor and honor and other words meant to make her proud, as though she hadn’t always been proud of her Dennis.

It wasn’t a long walk to the hospital and she immediately slipped on the smile she always wore around the patients, knowing she had to keep helping them, that Dennis would expect that of her. She wondered how long it would take before people began to call her a fool, whispering behind her back. Perhaps a couple of years before stories about the woman who wouldn’t forget her fiancé took over.

Or maybe, if she was lucky, she would join Dennis in heaven before the war ended.

***

Stiles started leaving hints around - documents relating to the people he’d known, medals of honor from WWII, books about re-incarnation. Odd remarks that the rest of the pack brushed off as Stiles being Stiles made Derek freeze, his eyes going out of focus for a moment before he moved on. Every mistaken name that slipped out of his mouth earned a confused glare, until Derek started avoiding him.

It took effort, but Stiles managed to take it in stride. It was a lot to take in, and Derek didn’t even have the advantage of some degree of magic in him. Chances were he had no memory of their pasts together.

But Stiles, Stiles couldn’t stop wondering. How many times had they met and fallen in love? How many times had they missed each other? How many people had someone like that? Because it was clear from the more than half a dozen lives he’d managed to start remembering that this wasn’t a fluke. He and Derek, in any number of places and forms and lives, had been in love through history.

And wasn’t that a lot to wrap your head around?

He was sitting in the kitchen working on a paper, his dad getting ready to go out to the store when the banging on the door came. Grumbling his dad opened it, raising an eyebrow when Derek Hale pushed past him to get into the house. “Apparently you have company,” he said, waiting until Stiles waved him off before heading out the door.

Derek looked a mess, eyes wide and hair wild. “You- the fire,” he started, voice choked before he let out a pained whine. “Saoirse. Oh God, Stiles…”

Of all the lives to remember, of course Derek’s mind would provide him with Saoirse. Young and Irish, a druid always looking for the truth. It had been an unpleasant night to wake up from one of his past-life memories, sheets sticking to him and the smell of burnt flesh in his nose. He could still remember Áedán’s screams as he watched the girl he loved get burned to death.

Stiles stood, arms barely open before Derek was pulling him tight against him, face buried against his throat so he could scent the younger man. “I’m okay, it’s okay, Derek,” he said, rubbing the alpha’s back. “I’m right here, right now, safe and sound. All those past-lives were just training, practice. I’ve been through enough to know how to keep up with you by now, and vice versa.”

There was a swallow, and then a breath against his throat that made his pulse race. “All of them? How…fuck, Stiles, how many?,” Derek asked, finally pulling back just enough to look at Stiles.

“I’ll talk you through them all. Suffice to say, pretty much all of human history has dictated that you and I make a pretty kick-ass couple. So, I’m thinking we stick with tradition and go up to my room for a sweet make-out session before my dad gets home from the store.”

The rambling seemed to work and Derek rolled his eyes, leaning in to nuzzle his throat again before letting himself be lead upstairs. Discussions about the past (and it’s past, and that past’s past and so on and so forth) could wait until later. Stiles wasn’t an expert at dating, but he was pretty sure proposing marriage and bringing up all the little were-babies they were going to adopt was the kind of thing that was supposed to wait until after the first date.

Though…

They weren’t going on a first date. Not really.


End file.
